


Lucky Star

by Annabel7



Series: Flaws In Design [2]
Category: Alien: Isolation (Video Game)
Genre: Artistic license is taken, Ellen Ripley mentioned/flashbacks only, F/M, Luna and Tranquility Station, and also Amanda needs some serious downtime and time to deal, becuase author Cannot Deal with some things
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-01
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-07-23 04:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,614
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16151684
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annabel7/pseuds/Annabel7
Summary: Ripley's survived the events of Sevastapol Station, and now has to slowly readjust to civilian life. If jumping at shadows, sleeping with a gun, and vicious nightmares weren't enough, she's also dealing with Weyland-Yutani breathing down her neck, her friend still missing, and...trying to maintain this strange and fragile connection she's developed with a fellow survivor.





	1. Chapter 1

“Ripley?” there was no answer, and despite the clouds in his head, his slowed reaction time, he wasn’t surprised when she didn’t respond. Ripley was finally sitting still enough for him to see that she was stained in the blood of androids—possibly some of his own too—and of humans—including her own—burns, scrapes, bruises, some repulsive kind of opaque slime, soot, and oil. “Ripley; have you had anything to drink in the last thirty hours? You’re injured, and likely severely dehydrated—“

“So I’m Ripley again?” she asked, her voice small and shaky. Samuels didn’t know if the reverb of her voice, as if she was speaking from yards away and not a few feet, was part of his faulty hearing or actually how she sounded. Maybe it was her trying to offer a sarcastic laugh; he couldn’t tell.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing, for fuck’s sake…” she slid her elbows down from their resting place on the table, crossed her arms flat, and laid her head down on them. Unconsciousness wasn’t the same as sleep, apparently. Verlaine said that she might have been out of it for up to three hours, and was goddamn lucky that she didn’t have brain damage, or a concussion ( _you have no idea how lucky I am, none at all_ …she had replied, not sure if she had luck in spades or pennies). Still, she felt like she’d been hit by a truck, or four, and could use twelve hours of sleep, a very strong drink, and a _fucking shower_.

……………..

                        _I love you sweetheart_

_……………_

“Ripley, I retrieved your medical report from Conner and Verlaine’s examination, and I know that I’m…not up to full processing speed but I do have more medical training than either of them and I think it’d be best if I were to go over—“

“How can you do that?” she asked, her voice strained. Her throat was raw from screaming; she was still short on breath but didn’t know if it was from exhaustion, anxiety, or a worse condition. When she tried to breathe deeply her ribs and throat ached.

“Do what?”

Maybe, she thought, maybe he didn’t remember: the frantic last words, the fear, _Amanda…thank you for talking as if I’ve had an actual life_ … Didn’t remember how close he’d stood next to her in the marshal bureau when she came back the first time. He looked so _scared_. He still had Taylor’s ( _Taylor was part of it. I’m the reason she’s dead too.)_ blood on his hands when he gripped her shoulder tight to stop her from leaving: _I should go with you_. She and Waits had both told him that it was better he stay with them. At what point did he leave? At what point was he so anxious to help that he left them alone? Did he know that him leaving is what ended up getting Waits killed? _Did he see it happen…did he_ let _it happen_? For half a moment, when she went down through that final room before reaching him, aware that he had dispatched every single Joe in the room and for a short moment she was safe, and he was so close, and _for just a moment_ she let herself replay the impressive display she witnessed through the vents. It was jolting to realize that the dry and gentle person she knew was capable the entire time of such violence, and yet even then, with every ounce of logic in her head telling her to prepare to put a bolt through his skull, she wasn’t afraid. Seeing him alive, in one piece, she almost—jokingly—told him that it was a turn-on.

“You know what I need right now?” she raised her head up, but remained slumped forward, not sure she’d ever sit straight again.

“Anything that I can possibly do to help I—“

“Can you contact the station? I-I know there’s no way that—the oxygen would have run out by now—but can you get into their computer system?”

It was so far from anything that he thought she’d say that he didn’t compute it for a good twenty seconds.

“I…the station comms were long down but—“

“Then _Anesidora_? Or whatever is left of her?”

“Ripley there’s nothing to gain from—you did your damned best and it’s a miracle that you—“

“Save the hero bullshit for someone who didn’t personally kill more people than she can currently remember, and then fuck up the most _basic_ of shit and let every other survivor drop to hell.” _That officer wanted to see his kids again, that was all, what did I deserve more than him? I should have let him shoot me, I should have run the other direction I—_

“What do you want me to find?”

“My mom—“ he voice cracked again, her mother’s voice fresh in her head, how long as it been? Hours? Compared to how many nights that she just wanted _someone_ to say anything half as reassuring to her? “My mom left a message for me…Marlow had a copy of it…his ship’s computer—”

“You heard from her?” he looked up at her, more emotional than he’d been since she jolted him back to life “You found out what happened?”

Ripley blinked; the way he replied you’d think he’d just won the damn lottery.

“I…she just told me what happened. The same thing as the station—I don’t want to go into it...”

“It’s alright, it’s—please. Let me give you a medical exam; let me see that you’re treated properly and in working order. Then I’ll attempt to contact its system and find the file.”

“I can wait but if that ship hits the core there won’t _be_ any files to find—“

“Ripley I don’t think I’ll make it out of going into the ship’s system wirelessly. I-I don’t mind—please don’t think that’s why I’m telling you…I’m still trying to figure out what’s Seegson protocol and what’s Weyland-Yutani and half of my software capabilities are… If I could just be sure that you and this ship will make it home first, then I’ll see what I can find.”

“Are…” Ripley studied him, trying to find any sign that this was a mistake, or that she heard him wrong. Not a thing. “Are you _fucking kidding me_?”

“I can do it, I think. I—please if you could go with me to the medical room then—“

“NO. No I—Samuels what the _fuck_ is wrong with you?—No,” she stopped him when he made motion to interrupt her, “Do not answer that. Jesus _Christ_. I did not spend six fucking hours patching your coding and gluing you back together for you to commit suicide _again_ ,” _reading out line after line of tangled codes—Weyland Yutani often brags that a single synthetic’s programming read out would stretch from Earth to Alpha Centauri—searching for anomalies, trying to find the overwritten threads to bring back to the surface, taking a fine-point laser to his injuries so he’d stop bleeding out, then breaking the lock off the mechanical storage to find more of his fluids, and using a drip from medical to pump it directing into a valve I found near his spine when I tried to access a central drive because even if I couldn’t save him now maybe there’d be something left on a memory core, anything._

“I didn’t—“

“Did you know that reformatting would kill you?” it wasn’t the only thing bothering her. Not even the top thing bothering her at the moment, but on the subject of whatever they were dealing with, it was the biggest question that he would be able to answer.

For a moment he wants to argue her phrasing: to be able to kill something would imply that the something was alive, but the look on her face informs him that now is _not_ the time.

“I did. There’s a failsafe in Weyland-Yutani models to insure that we’re never running with a lower quality form of software. I’m only made to function on their exclusive programs, but I wasn’t concerned with it. I’m not concerned with it now,” he sat down across from her at the galley table, and smiled at her for the first time in what felt like days. “And you’ll have your mother’s—“

“I’ll have a _recording_ of what might have been her last words; I’ll be no closer to finding a body, no closer to knowing…she’s either out there, still floating, or dead. Or…“ the sinking thought that her mother might have been rescued at some point, and then chosen not to return to Terra to find her daughter came back to the surface. Doubtful, now that she knows most of the truth of it, but the fear remains. “There’s nothing else of her and having—Okay, fine: I’d die to hear her voice again but she’s _gone_ and I’m not going to let _anyone_ lose their life over me getting… It’s not worth that.”

“Weyland-Yutani wouldn’t think it’s worth it but…well, I’m not worth much anymore after the damage anyway so—“

“ _I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT MONEY._ You _fucking idiot._ Is it programming? Are you not allowed to think to yourself ‘hmm, maybe I’m worth more than the electricity it takes to get me up?’”

 “At the moment, I’m not even worth that—“

“Don’t even—You’re a _person_. And a good one at that, better than anyone else on that hell ship and…Maybe I’m insane—mentally fucked for sure—but I thought—I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know what I _think_. Are you capable of thinking of yourself as a person? Or is it hard wired because _so help me_ I will rewrite that bit myself.”

“…Do you have formal synthetic program training, in any form?”

“No, but better than anyone else here. Stop distracting me.”

"Yes, Ripley. Considering I’m walking scrap as it is, I’ll admit it. I’ve…” he gave a very human gesture of rubbing his eyes, pinching the bridge of his noes. “Sometimes in the office I would think of how I’d rather be walking outside, or that I would like to read, or listen to something other than ambient office noise. I assumed that that was what ‘want’ was. But all that not getting those things ever caused me was a mild annoyance. Since then things escaladed to…pain, possibly but not the physical variety. They tested me for sentience more than once—it’s considered a glitch so I’ve been…forcing false results. Failing their exams. They let me have a pet fish—and weeks later asked me what I thought about it, what I named it, if I cared about it—and I told them I named it Fish and that it didn’t mean any—“ he stopped. The hand that was on the table was now under Ripley’s—she had leaned across the table to hold his tightly.

“Just…stop. You sound frantic. I’m sorry. I’m an asshole. I don’t know how to fix that. So you’re aware you’re a person? That’s what I’m asking,” her voice was cracking again, she was distressed, and he was causing it.

“Rip—“

“Why are you calling me that?”

“Ripley? It’s your name. I know I’m damaged but I do remember that much.“

“At…in the synthetic labs you were calling me Amanda.”

“I’m sorry, I was…under duress.”

“Even before you decided go get into that thing and let Apollo literally mind-fuck you to death, you called me by my first name. And you did the night before we boarded Sevastapol too.”

“If I offended you, I’m sorry. Is there another term you would rather I call you?”

“Amanda works for me,” she, perhaps absentmindedly, rubbed her thumb over the back of his hand. His skin felt almost real, but perhaps the only reason she didn’t think it felt real was because she _knew_ that it wasn’t.

“If you want your mother’s recording I will do my best to find it,” his voice dripped with syrupy sincerity; again Ripley thought he made a far better human than he did whatever he was originally made to be.

“I’d rather have you not-dead, thanks.”

“Will you let me check you over? Even if I don’t go looking for the recording?”

“Verlaine already did.”

Samuels pulled his hand out from hers gently, stood back up and crossed the galley to get her a glass of water.

“Drink that, slowly,” he said sliding it over to her. “If you think you can handle juice I’ll get some from the cold storage,” he told her, detached again.

“Can…I don’t want to ask for anything from you ever again but can I please use your cabin?”

“You may; I would never deny a request that I could fill, and I have no use for the room anyway—but may I inquire as to why?.”

“I don’t want to sleep across from Taylor’s bunk.” It was the second time that Ripley had to say her name since she watched the younger woman die, and it increased the dull roar of her headache to an irregular throbbing pain that she couldn’t decide if she wanted to silence with medication or alcohol.

“She was kind,” he offered, unsure if his words would help Ripley at all. “Very successful. I didn’t know her much better than that.”

“I think she was suspicious of you.”

“I’m not shocked. I was… _pushy_ trying to get your case seen.”

“Thank you. For that, and for the cabin.” Ripley disobeyed him, and drank half the glass of water in one go instead of pacing herself; she regretted it immediately. “Ugh….feel like shit…” She pushed her chair in and stumbled towards him, he moved to take her glass from her, but as he did she ducked to the side, stepped up to him, and pressed a brief, light kiss on his cheek. “Just…thank you. For everything.”

“R—…Amanda. You’re welcome.”

She tried to read his face again, vacant and if anything, confused. If she was insane, if all of this was in her head, she’d apologize later. Trying to do it with as much dignity as she could mange, and with as little discomfort for her as possible (interesting, considering that every movement seemed to find a new source of pain), she put her arms around him, tightly. For a long minute, he did nothing, but then slowly set a hand on her back about as light as he could. After a few seconds, Ripley cut whatever it was short, not wanting to outstay her welcome.

“I’m…going to try to sleep. If I don’t wake up in eighteen or twenty hours, make sure I’m alive?”

“I’ll be sure to.”

“Don’t kill yourself while I’m gone?”

“No promises,” he said, a slight change in his tone, more emotion, and some sarcasm. Personality. Ripley decided it was a good indication that he was (at least for now) functioning well enough, and it _slightly_ eased her worry that when she woke up he would be gone. She stopped herself at the doorway, turning back towards him: he was still standing in place, watching her closely.

She played through a few ways she could phrase the next question, trying to think of the least needy-sounding way that she could put it. She settled on simple.

“Could you come with me?”

“Yes, but…Amanda I don’t know if that would help.“

“If there’s something you could do at your desk, or anything, I don’t want to sleep without someone watching a door. I know…it’s safe—but—What if someone, or if one of those—I know that none of them _did_ but the thought’s still there and it won’t leave, and—“

“Are you alright?”

“Samuels, I have never once in my life been alright.”

He didn’t ask her again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please leave a comment so I know you're alive out there, even a "asdfghjkl" would be a welcome sight thank you and I love you.

 

It was the most use that his bunk had ever gotten, short of when one of them would sit on it while they spoke during off shifts. Amanda was shaking and sobbing on top of the sheets, and every once in a while he’d hesitantly set his hand near hers so she could hold it if she wanted, or he’d rub at her shoulder. Ripley would wince, but he didn’t seem to think it was from anything other than her crying; in reality it was a bruised bone in her shoulder blade.

Over the next two hours she choked out disconnected details of what he’d missed, of what she’d done. He tried to reason with her that Taylor’s death wasn’t her fault, that Ricardo’s wasn’t, but she countered with the fact that the whole tragedy was all because she wanted to know what happened to her mother. Still he kept offering her new lines of logic to convince her otherwise, convince her that she was blameless and this would have unfolded in a similar fashion had she never been contacted.

He reminded her pointedly that by her line of thought, he was as much or more to blame. After all, he was the one that implored her to come along.

“But you didn’t directly kill anyone,” she said.

“Ripley?”

“The ID tags in my bag; they’re not all from bodies I found…” she continued on, about how she wasn’t sure if she killed five people, or six, or eight. About how the collar of her shirt against her neck was too much to handle and swallowing hurt. Samuels looked at the finger-shaped bruises around her throat, and made a sound that was neither a vocalization of pity nor computer’s error tone, but something between the two.

“Whatever you had to do…Amanda, any other human would have done the same, or worse. You still _tried_ until the last moments to save whoever you could.”

“For everyone I tried to save I either abandoned or directly caused the death of ten more. I don’t even know if half the bodies I saw were alive or dead.”

“You wouldn’t abandon someone if it was safe to help them.”

“I left you, didn’t I?”

“Ripley…”

“And even if some of the bodies were alive… They wouldn’t be for long. I think I know what they were doing with the live ones.”

She was silent then for a long time, moving so little and breathing so shallow that he was worried she might have fallen asleep, or even fainted. Eventually she sat back up, and was able to garner the strength to tell him about the hive.

“Something big laid those eggs…and the _things_ that were coming out of them—they weren’t… I don’t know what they were but they were latching on people’s faces, and…Dr. Lingard’s files said—they put something in Marlowe’s wife; I didn’t see any smaller creatures besides those spider—“

“Spiders? Flesh tone, bone-like?”

“You saw them too?”

He nodded.

“I’m sorry,” Amanda said, not sure why, and continued. “But some of the bodies on the walls… _in the walls_ …they had holes in them, something that broke out from the inside.”

"What can I do for you?” An hour before, he had already left to get her more water when she asked him to find alcohol for her. So far she had only asked for that, and for painkillers. Earlier even than that, she asked for copious amounts both in the same glass when she realized that even with the ID cards, she wasn’t sure that she’d be able to figure out which of them were people she killed. Her attendant had ignored her request in favor of water and a sleep aid.

“You’ve done nothing but help,” she assured him, her voice quiet, almost shamed.

“There has to be something I can do. I owe you my life, Amanda—“

“If anything, we’re even,” he started at her shoulder again, and she carefully began to uncurl herself from the tight, painful ball she had been in. Not quite stretched out, she was at least relaxed enough to sleep in this position without waking up in more pain than she was in already. Samuels drew his hand back from her shoulder slowly.

“I should leave then, let you rest.”

“No!” she hadn’t meant for it to sound so desperate, but he did stop halfway through the motions of crossing the two steps it took to get to the door. “Could you…” She didn’t know how to ask it, or even _what_ she was trying to ask. What she wanted out of it. “Take your jacket off and stay here—with me?”

He paused, for half a second Amanda thought he looked scared, but he confidently removed his uniform jacket.

Ripley wasn’t sure what she expected, but seeing this reaction she realized that if she had to guess, she would have guessed that he’d put up a bit of a protest instead of immediately changing his mind. Then she realized: “You had to take that as an order, didn’t you?” he gave her a nearly imperceptible nod. “I’m only asking…please, if you want to stay, can you?”

“I’m not going to do that to you,” he said; she was sitting on the edge of the bunk now, leaning back slightly on her hands. They were dirty; her right hand had a burn on it, and what Samuels thought looked like gunpowder residue. More than anything though he wanted to take her hand to tell her that he wasn’t staying; he had seen family members repeat the bad news he gave them to partners or relatives, and it seemed to him that the comfort of human contact eased the negativity of the words.

“Do what to me?”

“You’re…distressed.” There wasn’t any tactful way to explain, but he had to make an attempt. “You’re not thinking things through—I’m a trained medical, you’ve experienced trauma, there’s nothing wrong with me being here and I’m willing to help you but—“ he cut himself off when Ripley’s jaw slightly dropped; her eyes widened.

“I’m not asking for a _pity fuck_ ,” she was half offended, but too exhausted to be any more upset with him for the assumption, and definitely too exhausted to visualize what that would have looked or felt like. “I don’t think I can sleep alone.”

“I-I know what you’re asking for,” he didn’t; he was genuinely afraid that Ripley would ask him for physical intimacy of a kind that he wasn’t even sure he was capable of; and if there was anything happening here he didn’t want to see her illusion of how human he was so quickly shattered. “But still—Ripley, it’s...”

“Pathetic?”

“I would never think that.” Despite the words being positive ones, ones that wouldn’t necessarily benefit from adding the comfort of touch to them, he knelt next to the bunk so he could take her hand. She let it go limp in his when she realized how delicately he was touching her.

She lowered her head, sucked on her lower lip where it had split. The pain and the coppery tang of blood grounded her. “Is it all in my head then?” she asked. “Ah, no,” she stopped him the second she saw his mouth motion to speak, “Before you ask, you know what I’m talking about.” Though she would have figured that he had never held someone’s hand before she didn’t realize just how far his lack of intuitive touch went: his fingers wrapped around her hand instead of clasping it palm to palm. She gently turned her hand in his so she could weave her fingers through his. When she held it tighter, he mimicked her exact pressure.

“…I’m sorry—I thought I was better at—I’m… Ricardo guessed at it and I _lied_ to him. I only…It’s _unnatural_.”        

“Everything that’s happened the past two days was unnatural, we’ll live.”

“There’s…What is this?” His questioning of just how sentient he was, of how far his resemblance to humanity had reached didn’t include questioning the fact that he admired her, more intensely than he did any other human he’d encountered.

“You care about me a lot, don’t you?” the words felt crumbly and juvenile as they fell from her mouth and she regretted the phrasing as he nodded solemnly. “I care about you a lot too.”

“Ripley…”

“It’s not just because of what you did, or anything that I’ve seen today—yesterday—I mean it; Samuels, you’re…”

“I’m not _made_ for things like this. I’m not even sure if—“

“You’re more human than most humans I’ve met. It’s enough,”

His answer came so quickly with a resolute firmness in his voice compared to his previous attempts to get out of the cabin: “Not for you it isn’t.”

“What do—“

“Of _all_ people that I’ve met, you’re—you need to be with a real person.”

“Don’t do this, not now.” There were tears again in the corners of her eyes, and she wondered, as she did every time she had a day or week of on and off crying, why crying-tears burned so badly as opposed to normal eye-tears. “Pretend…you’re a human. Would you want to stay then?”

“God, yes,” Ripley smiled the first true smile she had for a while, her eyes still red and puffy; every bit of visible skin and clothes still disgustingly dirty. Samuels took off his boots and sat next to her; she slowly inched closer to him, shoulder to shoulder. Her first experiences in bed with lovers had nothing on this for its levels of delicacy and discomfort.

“I did want to sleep,”

“You can lie down; I’m fine like this.”

“Samuels, you’re a bad liar.”

“In my nature.”

“You’re also really warm,” she could feel it, even through all of their clothing. “Are you okay?”

“I run warm normally, and…my mind is—stressed.”

“Then relax some…I know I’ll sleep better with you between me and the door,”

Something stopped him though; lying down was another step entirely, and as his thoughts caught up with his actions he could hardly believe he was here at all.

“Amanda, this isn’t…”

“What?”

“It’s not…Relations with a synthetic in any form are considered…”

“ _Do you want to be here_?” he answered her with a slight nod ‘yes.’ “Then understand that I do not give a _shit_ what is or isn’t considered anything. I’m not supposed to be alive right how, and you were _fucking dead_ this morning and—“ _and you deserve at least this much_. “You want to be here. I want you here. You have enough personhood to say yes or no, so I trust you that you really mean it.”

“You trust me?”

“Right now, you’re the only living person I trust.” It wasn’t a stretch, she had no living family (unless her father was still alive, but he didn’t count to her, not anymore, she had done her crying for him fifteen years ago), no living friends, and only a few coworkers she got alone well with. “Unconditionally.”

It wasn’t the first time that he was struck by the sudden and overwhelming want to touch her; the inch between them was too much. Still, he didn’t act on the impulse to gently brush some loose strands of hair away from her eyes.

“I’m not even real...Please understand that much.”

She considers his tone more than what he’s trying to tell her; there’s so much grief in his voice that she’s not sure he’s a program at all, perhaps he was some ghost, a lost soul en route to incarnation that became trapped in something very close to human.

“I’m so sorry—“ he doesn’t have time to ask her what she’s sorry about before she continues “I am… asking you to do whatever it is you want.”

“Are you trying to order me?”

“Would that work?”

“I would think you’d have to order…a specific action or series of actions in order for me to follow them. I’m not supposed to be able to want—I don’t even know what that feeling is, if it’s what I’m feeling, I have nothing to compare it to—“

“You sound human—“

“I sound _confused_.”

“Which is _human_.” She didn’t know what her wanting was, him, safety, a friendly person, or just to be held—

_…held……_

“Samuels, can I touch you?” earlier hadn’t been impulsive but half-planned; still it seemed more acceptable than crossing any boundaries that he might have had here.

“Use me however you need, anything that you want it’s—“

“Is that self-hatred programmed into you? Or is that actually _you_ telling me to _use_ you like a goddamn toolkit? Because that’s vile.”

“I don’t know. I don’t know what is, or isn’t programming; what thoughts are mine and which are written—“ he was stopped by Ripley’s arms reaching around him. She held tight to him; the muscles in her arm tense. She tucked her head under his, resting it against his chest.

According to her, it might have been a few minutes; to his clock it wasn’t even a full fifty seconds later that he returned her awkward embrace.

“I don’t know your first name.” Ripley had made a point after her first boyfriend, to always know the first and last names of everyone she went to bed—or closet—with.

“It doesn’t—“

“’C’ something? I saw it on the ship’s logs when I signed in.”

“…Christopher is my individual designation within the model line.” Amanda smiles against the front of his synthetic blood stained shirt.

“It suits you,” she said as pleasantly as she could manage. Some kind of motor in him stopped it’s uneven buzzing, and went quiet; she hoped that it was a positive reaction. There was a lot of dried white blood on his shirt, there was even more on his jacket, and the recent memory of Conner helping her haul him onto the work table drifted back to her uninvited.

_“Where did all the fluid on his coat come from then?” Ripley was almost               frantic, and while Conner was upset for her sake, and still shaken by                   what had happened, he couldn’t quite summon the same worry for the               synthetic’s wellbeing that she had. “I can’t find any punctures or                         damage near major arteries. Could it all have been from being on the                 cart with the broken droids?” Conner caught her language: no                             hesitation, she had said that he was with them, not with the ‘other                     broken droids.’ Ripley had naturally avoided referring to the android                   by what he was._

_“No—Neither,” he finally spoke up, “Hank used to study this at the                      academy. Arterial spray patterns. Samuels was standing in front of                      whatever bled out, and close too.” Conner was starting to think that                    waking it up was less and less of a good idea._

_“You think he did it?”_

_“Possibly.”_

_For half a second Ripley looked down at the body before getting back to             work._

_“If he hacked apart the droids I saw in there then it would have been for               defense,” she said. It was the last she had on the subject._

 

Self defense. She had _shot at and killed humans_ out of self defense, maybe even unnecessarily and out of fear alone. The flicker of fear she felt when his hold on her tightened burned off in favor an almost-smile at the memory of the short glimpses she had gotten of his pride when he had dismissed the Seegson models as far below his baseline capabilities. Her hand went up his spine—she was aiming for his hair, she wanted to feel it, but she reached the part of his skin that was rough from where she had cut it open and then resealed it.

“Does that hurt?”

“I can’t exactly feel pain, but warning notices and reactions are mostly shut off, it was one of the first things I did actually.”

“Do you remember…it?”

“Not exactly,” he said quietly and she noticed that his quiet words were merely his own voice played at a much lower volume, not the breathy sound of a human whisper. “It’s…sludgy. I’m aware on and off of it, and the Seegson ghost copies are still there fighting the Weyland-Yutani programs. You don’t want to discuss—“

“Actually I do,”

“Here?”

“Where else?” She breathed in, eyes wide. “ _Oh_ … You think I don’t want to talk about your mechanical details up close.”

“Well do you?”

“I’m fucking worried about you, of course I want to talk about it.” She dug her fingers into the silicone flesh over his shoulder blade.

“I shouldn’t have let you invest in me,”

“Sam— _Christopher_ , please. How bad is the damage? Tell me the truth.”

“Everything is slow. I feel like a large portion of my brain and body have been removed but I can’t pinpoint what’s gone. Socio-emotional mimicry are limited—“

“That sounds…bad.”

“I would not allow myself in close proximity to anyone—especially to you if I thought that I even had a chance of being a threat.”

"That wasn’t what bothers me; I said I trust you.” It kept him quiet for a few minutes, and Amanda silently monitored the desktop computer sounds coming from his chest cavity.

“I should really go,” he said in a rush, breaking the silence.

“Don’t,”

“If you need…human company please, I know you have your reasons and reservations but try talking to Conner, or Verlaine. I’m a _simulation_.”

“You lost the option to call yourself a computer program when you said you’d die for—not even for me, just so I could hear my mom’s voice… A second time that is. You _did_ die for it once already.”

He stood up, trying to get out of her embrace with as little physical pushing away as possible. “It’s a cyclical argument; ‘dying’ as you insist on calling it was my purpose in that situation—I was— _I am_ expendable, and that was long before I met you—“

“ _What the f—“_

“I know it’s…considered damage—and I also have some jumpy coding—you’ve heard me stutter I’m sure…

“Christ, Samuels you aren’t _defective_ , you’re _human_. I’m not an idiot and you stop your bullshit Turing-Test whatever you want to call this—I know _what_ is in your thick skull, but _who_ is in it is a human.”

“How do you know if I’m sentient?”

“I just know—“

“ _I_ don’t even know. And I don’t want to ask myself every time you approach me if this is sincerest truth or if it’s a learned program that I—“

“Do you want to be able to care?” she too, noticing again that though they were close in height, she still had to look up at him to meet his eyes. “To care as a human would?”

“More than anything.”

Ripley smiled. “Good enough for me.”

“No—it’s not—Ripley—“

“Let me, please let me try—I’m not looking for some kind of commitment but we…care about each other and—“

“You should be with someone that could give you the galaxy if you asked—“

“You’re the only person who thinks or wants that, I don’t, no one else would do that for me. I’m not really worth that much…drama.”

"If anyone was able to get close to you they’d love you—“

 “Samuels they have! People have and guess what? I’m still alone and maybe it’s because I’m faulty too, or because that’s just life sometimes but I don’t matter to anyone—“

“How can you say that about yourself?”

“Because it’s true!”

“And you don’t believe that I’m not…anything, really.” The frustration softened from her face. Here were two people that the universe decided were just flecks of dust blowing through the station corridors and they end up arguing on a cot in an unused cabin while covered in dried blood. “You mean a lot to me, if I haven’t made that clear yet.”

“You have,”

“A-And I can’t tell you more because it could hurt you and—“

 “Just keep telling me what it feels like. You said that Apollo left you ‘sludgy’ what else does it feel—“

“If that’s what ‘feel’ is then… I well…I’ve felt about you for—some time now.”

“No shit… Please, if you want to—I’m not looking or asking or even thinking about tomorrow, I want company. I like you, more than I probably should. And you do too. Stay.”

Several different reactions played across in expressions all at once, and it gave off the effect that he was glitching again. Ripley sat back down on the bunk and pulled her legs up, lying tight against the wall, while Samuels shut off the ceiling light, knowing that there was no way either of them would be comfortable in the total darkness of turning off the small desk lamp too. He took his spot beside her, and neither moved at first, until both did slowly, reaching out for grounding comfort more than affection.

 

It bothered her how natural it felt, and how easy it was to find a position to settle in with limbs around each other, how well they fit. He keeps fidgeting his hand in hers though; now and then just feeling hers with his, like he’s making a 3D model of it in his head—which, quite possibly he was. Ships tended to run cold, which under normal circumstances had never bothered her, but the Torrens’ atmosphere seeped under the layers of grime and clothing on her skin and made her bones cold.

Then again, maybe that prickling chill had nothing to do with the actual temperature. Either way, the heat output of her bunkmate was more than welcome. And maybe he was right, maybe she was only clinging to him because of the hell they narrowly escaped—maybe part of it was a little hero worship, a little bit of shock that someone had done a series of increasingly difficult tasks for her. No one had ever gone out of their way for her like that in a long time. Even Zula never bothered to use her clearances to help her look for her mother; she was kind and slowly warmed up to Ripley but the Marine had maintained a thin wall of distance. She had her own issues, Ripley had known that much, but she had genuinely hoped that there was a future friendship there.

Even if it would lack the now-undeniable romantic implications, she hoped that her glitching space-heater bedmate would remain close with her in the future. She needed someone; being friendless for so long left a deep hollow ache in her chest that made staying in lonely, and going out even worse. It had been getting unhealthy, and a friendship of any kind might do Samuels some good too.

Though she didn’t think it possible, Amanda did eventually fall asleep. Or, more likely, pass out from sheer exhaustion, but she didn’t dream, and the digital white noise that embraced her felt much safer than the ambient distant engine roar of the ship, and of space whirling by them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was never going to be happy with how this one was written, but I've made you guys all wait for far too long so here we go. These two have...kind of happened.


	3. Chapter 3

Samuels didn’t dare touch her more than she had initiated; the constant caressing of her hand was all he allowed himself. Then again, his mind was already on the brink of complete system failure, and that was before Ripley had tugged him close, her legs twined with his, her arm over his waist—if he tried anything else, the strength of sensory input would probably fry whatever faulty processor he was left running on. Still, once she was asleep, and miraculously soundly too, the constant contact of her, the audible and tangible proof of her vitals…it was calming. If nothing else, she was alive, and she had found out what she came out here for—or at least…mostly. She seemed to be comforted by the closeness, so he was able to rationalize to protocols that were trying to tell him to leave that it was best he reciprocate her snug embrace.

She tilted her face up a little at one point to mumble something that he didn’t fully understand, but when she did her lips brushed slightly against his neck— _that had to be a mistake_. It wasn’t as if she didn’t kiss him on the cheek in the galley, and maybe it was the fact that they were in private now that made it seem so much less likely, but it did, and he did his best to ignore it. Feeling her was nice; this human that he had held an idea of, finally had the opportunity to meet, and even touch in passing, and now he could hold her. Solid, warm—yet still slightly cooler than his range that typically averaged out around 37.5°, the hard edges of her—elbows against his ribs, her skull tucked close to his chest; the softness of _her_ chest, her relaxed muscles under his hands…the realization that until she fell asleep, she might have been observing details about him as well. They were the kind of details that made up more than just data and numbers, it was something that perhaps made him a little bit more real to her, to himself—even if only for a couple of hours.

Two hours of sleeping soundly and he thought that that should be enough to insure that she wouldn’t wake any time soon; he carefully detached from her grip on him and quietly took leave of the cabin. There were other things that needed done (everyplace that she had been against him was colder now). Verlaine and Conner hadn’t seen a quarter of the disaster and tragedy that Samuels did, and even less than Amanda, but still they were both likely in need of some form of aid, even if only a listening ear to hear what they had seen on their end. He wanted to go over Amanda’s medical report with Verlaine again. Taylor needed—

 _I need to write her reports. I need to write my reports. Prepare incident files…_ He only hoped that he wouldn’t have to be the synthetic that would deliver a silver-plated medal of “Service to the Sciences” or whatever they decided to award her to her family. True, he didn’t know her well, and she never gave him any special attention, but if Ripley had been the one with a good family supporting her climb up the ladder, she could easily be the one that they were leaving behind.

They had made their first attempted contact with Sevastapol forty-nine hours, and thirty six minutes earlier.

 

\-----------

 

 _Fifty hours and two minutes_ , Verlaine thought looking at the clock on the galley wall. She had seen some nightmares over the years, both in person and on the news, and yet seeing that _thing_ creep onto her ship through the cameras, silently rushing Conner and herself to the smuggler’s storage in the floor of the _Torren’s_ second deck, it was closest she had ever been to anything of that caliber.

Conner had told her stories before of his partner’s bug hunts; she told him he must have exaggerated them to him. They’ve found small life forms, but nothing that large had ever been documented on any planet or satellite surface. Going over the ship’s footage after Conner had taken three shots of her secret bottle of whiskey and retreated to bed, she noted the height of the monster—easily two meters tall as it hunched over to stalk through the corridors of her ship. Possibly as much as three then, if it were to stand up.

Against her better judgment, she paused a frame of the tape, and zoomed in on it’s head, looking for any kind of features—she recoiled from the screen immediately. _Trick of the light; it’s just lights shining on the shell it’s—_ beneath the shell was what looked uncannily like an extended human skull, complete with empty eye sockets.

That was how she ended up at the galley table, an empty glass with half-melted ice cubes in it, and an almost-empty handle of whiskey; across from her was the synthetic. Unnerving to say the least, he had absolutely been dead when Conner had brought him back onto the _Torrens_. Hell, they were planning on selling him for parts under salvagers’ rights. _Never should have tried docking on that fucking station…_ it wasn’t worth it; Conner hadn’t seen any survivors, couldn’t radio anyone let alone anyone from their party. All they had gotten was a cart of salvage and supplies that some poor soul had abandoned—android parts, medkits, ethanol, several protein bars, and one slightly-singed Weyland-Yutani synthetic. Then again, if they hadn’t gotten close enough Ripley would be dead too, and it was bad enough that she had already lost one passenger. At least now they had excuses, a story, multiple witness perspectives…there would be so much red tape bullshit to go through, not the least would be the synthetic’s recordings, if Ripley hadn’t damaged any in he manic attempt to wake him.

Samuels was twitchy; maybe he didn’t notice that he was, and Verlaine wasn’t about to point it out any more than she was about to point out that upon going to the security tapes earlier, the live feed had shown Ripley walking into his cabin. She absently tapped the rim of her glass, trying to think of…anything. Of how they were going to report this; how they were completely fucked if the company asked for compensation on a lost employee, damaged synthetic, and a lost flight recorder. Contracts with Weyland-Yutani were normally straightforward—shifty, yes, but there was no fine print, just the basic deal of what they were given upfront, and the terms of what they would get upon return.

 _Assholes probably knew what we’d be up against. Why else would they hire a ship that was more expensive than taking their own?_ She had come down to the galley to drink what she could, have a glass of water, and then follow Conner’s example and retreat. Sleep wasn’t about to come easy to her after all of that, and an aching sense that no matter where she would go on her ship, one of those creatures would be tucked into the corner, waiting.

The synthetic continued twitching every couple minutes whenever he turned a page on the datapad in front of him, just too obviously mechanical to be a human nervous-tick. Verlaine sat up straighter in her chair so she could see across the table at what he was reading.

“I’m not an idiot,” she said.

“I’m sorry, was I speaking?” there was genuine worry in his voice, which couldn’t be good. A synthetic could do some serious damage if it wanted to, and a glitching one with a half-fried brain couldn’t be the safest thing to have on board.

“No, but that’s Ripley’s medical report. I took EMT training before signing my ship out for contract trips; everything I wrote there is sound.”

“She doesn’t have a concussion?”

“She does, I wrote that down. Mild, but she’s absolutely had one—Ripley has a bruise on her skull like an old cartoon character would get.”

“Minor scrapes, cuts, and burns?”

“Treated, at least what she would let me get to.”

“How did you know she had a cracked rib?”

“For some reason she begged me to do a scan of her chest and abdomen. It was the only thing she wanted; she didn’t even want me offering any other help or even a painkiller.”

The part of Ripley’s story about the people glued into the walls of the nest, with holes torn in their chests came back to him. He didn’t mention it to Verlaine.

“I’d still feel better if she’d let me look her over,”

“Do you think you’d be very observant in your state?”

“No—but I’m not…entirely functionless. I have—Ripley did…” he seemed to freeze for a moment before fully forming a thought. “From what I can tell, all Seegson protocols default back to APOLLO. She found all the addresses for APOLLO and deleted any connecting lines of programming…it didn’t remove any of my previous codes, but I’m still running on their format. It’s…limited,” Verlaine never liked how realistic synths were made, and was particularly bothered by how this one seemed to be on another level entirely from all the ones that she had met before. There was no mistaking the very human tone of shame in his voice. “But I can still…help her. If she would let me I—“

“Don’t fuck this up.” Her words surprised herself too; maybe she was actually a little drunk. Samuels paused without looking up at her. “Nobody gets a second chance. Do not-” she repeated with finality “- _fuck this up.”_

“I don’t—“ _know what you’re talking about_ , he meant to say. But Ripley had seen it. Verlaine had seen it earlier, her remembered now. Even Ricardo, the nice boy from the station— _the boy that I hoped would make it out of there with Amanda_ —had noticed too.

“Where’s Ripley?”

“…I’ve been watching her,” it wasn’t a lie, not at all; he’d been watching her, feeling her, cataloging all of her that he could. Eager to avoid more details in this conversation, he rose from his seat and started putting together a small tray of supplies.

“Then don’t waste the chance.”

“Captain, this isn’t….” he couldn’t think of any excuse, of anything to try and logically lie to her that the impossible wasn’t actually happening. After all, he was halfway through assembling a tray of food and a sorted container of pills that were absolutely not intended for him, and Verlaine would have already noticed that Ripley didn’t sleep in the crew quarters. “She’s hurt, that’s all. No one should ever have to see what she went through in there. I don’t even want to relive it enough to write the reports for it, and that’s my bloody _purpose_.”

“Remember what I told you before? About not—“

“—letting her go while I ended up recycled? The irony seems to be that that’s exactly what’s going to happen when we make port.” He said it with such a conversational air that at first she didn’t realize he was serious.

“And you’re alright with that?”

“I’ve already been awarded the chance to see the outcome of the voyage. To finish my tasks as I was ordered to complete them. To try and rectify with Ripley what I’ve put her through. I am…fully aware of what will have to be done when I return to Weyland-Yutani.”

“If Ripley was able to get you walking again, why won’t they just complete the repairs? Your kind can’t be cheap to replace.”

“At this point it would be far easier to replace me than to…repair whatever is wrong with me. I’ve been…out of sorts for far longer than the past two days. The fact that I was able to—Artificial intelligences shouldn’t be able to think in the patterns that I do. They’ll want to research on my components and then, as with every other abnormal synthetic ‘mind,’ they’ll destroy what ever is left.”

“For their sake I hope Ripley doesn’t find out what they’ll do to you.”

“She won’t find out.”

“You aren’t going to tell her?”

“More than that, if I still am capable of it, I plan on lying to her. There’s no need for her to…worry. It’s inevitable, and she needs—“

“After the hell that poor woman’s gone though you’re going to let that greed machine of a company take something else from her?”

“They can’t _take_ me from her, I don’t belong to her; it’s not as if—“

Verlaine held up a hand to silence him.

“I stand by what I said before Samuels. And, to be fully honest, I think it’s fucked up. It’s not right, or normal…But I do see two— _beings_ that have had a miserable time recently and seem better off for the other one. “

“Ripley was still sleeping when I left, I don’t want her to wake up alone.” It was a solid excuse, she had to give him that, but it was an excuse to avoid the conversation nonetheless.

“Then go. And so help me I’ll tell her the truth if you lie to her.”

“There’s no _reason_ to—“

“From the very, very little that I know about her, she’s spent most of her life having men from Weyland-Yutani lying through their teeth at her and breaking her heart. It needs to stop.”

If possible, Samuels looked even more ashamed as he strode out of the galley. Verlaine was shocked he didn’t tip the tray he was carrying: his gait was nothing short of robotic, almost like a wind-up toy, though maybe it was anger making him glitch even more.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I told you guys that I wasn't giving up on this story yet. So help me I will keep this thing going if I'm the only person still on the boat.
> 
> Especially considering the extra Isolation/Amanda Ripley canon we'll be getting. I'm not going to handle the canon-in-the-face when it comes to McClaren and I'm still living in Complete Denial that we're going to get the "Samuels is alive and he and Ripley eventually live happily ever after after being alien-hunting space pirates with Zula and her synthetic bf."
> 
> Well. If Dark Horse or Fox won't do it, I will *shrug emoji*
> 
> Hope you continue to enjoy my self indulgent fantasy that this is how the game actually ended, as usual please pretty pretty please leave a comment (even if its just a key smash).
> 
> And happy new year!


	4. Chapter 4

 

Amanda was dreaming.

That much, she was vaguely sure of in the back of her mind, but more strongly than the hazy thought of "this wasn’t real" was the echo of a beast in death throes that she had nightmares of as a child; a creature that the matron of her first group home said was the devil, something that her last foster mother, a kind woman by the name of Wilhelmina Bueller, told her shakily was an imaginary monster.

Maybe they were both only half-wrong.

Something laid those eggs. Something made those monsters, and it was big, strong, and intelligent.

And it was calling out to her in grief-stricken rage.

There were no words, of course, yet the meaning of it was clear: _you murdered my children, killed your kind as we killed your kind, you have no goal but protection of yourself. We protect our children. You only saved yourself._

The message felt like oil, thick, black, suffocating; and she reached out into the empty space so hollow that it couldn’t even be described as cold—there was nothing there, only this viscous material as if her arms were asleep. She couldn’t even _feel_ anything, and opening her mouth felt like the time she almost drowned all those years ago at her grandparents’ house— _If this is as bad as dying gets then maybe I can handle it…_

 

When it felt like she was about to black out entirely, her mind about to break apart, there was a harsh light fighting through the vacuum. _We never turned the light off—we…_

“Samuels?” she mumbled as she reached across the bunk, but only grabbing air. “ _Samuels_?!”

He wouldn’t have just _left_ , she asked him not too, she asked him specifically to _not_ leave but— _oh God no no no no…_

 

\---------

 

Samuels carefully held the tray of food and medications in one hand and opened the door with the other hand, slowly, expecting Ripley— _hoping_ Ripley would still be sleeping.

“Amanda?” he asked quietly.

“ _FUCK!”_ she was _not_ still sleeping. Noting that there was more rage than fear or pain in her voice, he approached her carefully

 _“_ What’s—“

“Where the _fuck were you?!”_ She was a sight and a half: still as filthy as she was when she first got back onto the Torrens, with the added mess of her bed-tangled hair, fresh tear-trails cutting through the grime on her face and shaking with anger.

“I was getting you something to eat so you could take a stronger painkiller and something for your—“

“I thought you _wandered off to die—“_

 _“_ Why would I do—“

“ _Because_ you’re always offering to, and I _—“_

 _“_ I’m right here. I told you I wouldn’t try contacting the ship,” it placated her, or at least seemed to, but once he was close enough that she could reach him, she hit his arm with a strength that surprised him more than the red-flag of violence in anger registered.

“Don’t _fucking_ leave me alone again,”

“In reality, there will be many times when I will have to do that, but I promise that I will never again intentionally put myself at risk of not returning alive,” he gently put his hands on her shoulders encouraging her to the bunk.

“And I don’t feel like eating.”

“I thought as much; the thermos only has broth in it; if you can keep that down, you should have more.”

“Are you my doctor now too?”

“Actually, I am. One of my many listed uses for this trip was medical officer,” he said getting the thermos into her hands. She took a careful sip of it, and then went to drink half in one go, “ _Don’t_. You’ll make yourself sick.”

“What happens now?”

“I’d like to see you get some kind of fruit, or protein.”

“I meant…” she blew on thermos, a sign she was very much still worn down; he had seen her before drink coffee hot enough that it set off _his_ temperature warnings. “Do we—I’m…I don’t even know a word that covers the kind of fucked up situation we just got out of, and I’m… Last night. Do you want that still?”

“You’re welcome to stay as long as you want or need to,”

“You know what I meant.”

“I’d like it if you stayed here. And…I’ve wanted you for a while.” Amanda felt her heart stop for a short second; _there’s no way he realizes what he just said._

“Do you mean it?”

“I do,” he tucked stray strands of hair behind her ear. He could hear her heart racing, and whatever he felt like trying, considered even partially doing was banished in favor of medical concern for her. “Eat what you can, _slowly_ , and then take the pills. I’m going to check on the ship’s computers. I promise I’ll be back,” at her opening her mouth to protest he called up a timer to his line of vision. “I’ll be fifteen minutes. Any more than that and you can come find me, but I’ll be talking to the Muther system if she lets me.”

“If she doesn’t?”

“Then after you shower, and put on clean and dry clothes, you can help me take a look at it.”

“You’ll be careful?” she was leaning forward on the edge of the bunk, eyes wide.

No one had ever wanted him to be careful before Ripley did. No one ever asked him to come home, be safe, or to take care of himself at all. Being asked to do so felt…unnecessary and awkward.

“Yes—thank you.”

“Then I’ll see you soon,” she forced a smile as he shut the door softly, trying his best to return the expression.

 

\------

 

He did see her again sooner than expected; she was clumsily rushing past him in the corridor, and before he could process what was going on, he heard her getting sick.

“ _Ripley, are you alright?!”_

 _“_ Please go away,”

“No, Amanda—“ he knelt behind her, intending to hold her hair back, as she clearly wasn’t done, and the head was still half a corridor away.

“Just—get me a fucking m…mop,” she gagged again, and her pitiful expression was still telling him to leave.

“I’ll get cleaning supplies and be right back, and water for you.”

Ripley figured that she might as well keep it to one spot, and stayed there.

 

\-------

 

She was worse off than he thought, he considered quickly walking back to where he left her, arriving in time to see her dry heaving over the mess.

“Leave it.”

“Let me help—“

“Give me the dignity of cleaning this up myself.”

“This isn’t about _dignity_ I’m trying to hel—“

“ _Don’t._ Please.” She was pleading, and the only reason that he obeyed was the fear that next she would have tried begging, and he couldn’t—and didn’t want to—imagine what hearing such a strong being like her beg would sound like.

 

\-------

 

Two hours later, he found her again in his cabin, stripped out of her outer layers of clothing, but not yet showered. She was curled up on her side on his bunk wide awake, hugging the spare pillow off of her bunk to her stomach.

“I feel worse, before you ask.”

“Because you took more of those pills without eating anything else again, didn’t you?”

“They…drown some of it out too.”

“Drown what out?”

She considered telling him, but couldn’t. He’d treat her like even more of an invalid than he already was if he knew that she had been hearing voices in her sleep.

“Nothing. What do you have there?”

“Plain toast,” he said, gently setting it on the bunk next to her.

“Gross.”

“You’re getting nothing else until you eat it, and then proceed to _not_ —“

“I don’t want to talk about vomiting in the hallway anymore than I do anything else that has happened this week,” she winced, and sat up. Before she used to hate lying down, sitting down. She stood to do most of her work; at her tiny flat she even had a raised desk. The idea of going back to that lifestyle so soon made her feel even more ill than she already did. She took a bite of the toast, and laid back down again.

“I can leave you to sleep,”

“Don’t. Please don’t leave me while I’m out of it.”

“Amanda—“

“You don’t even have to be in bed, but don’t leave the cabin.”

There’s nothing he needed to do, not now. The ship’s computer has catalogued all anomalous footage into a separate file, and he’s insured that Verlaine and Conner have it double locked from any access that Weyland-Yutani could possibly have. The computer also told him that it didn’t recognize him as a WY registered synthetic, not even as a Seegson one—it eased some fears, but also took a bite out of whatever shred of pride he had. Being a synthetic wasn’t exactly the greatest lot in existence he could have been given, but Weyland-Yutani made them better than anyone else, and if he must be a computer, at least he was a good one. _What am I now?_

“I can stay,” he decided, figuring that he could file through his error reports at his desk.

“Promise?”

“I do.” And for the moment, he truly meant it.

 

\-------

An Amanda shaped lump on the bed groaned quietly before mumbling: “I feel like dirt,”

“A bath might help; I can get you a basin, some water, anything you’d like.”

“I’d rather shower,” she rubbed her eyes, and groggily sat up, biting back the urge to gag when the smell of her clothing and the various substances on it hit her conscious nose. She stood up and stretched, several joints cracking; the sound of bones made something knot in her gut, and memories she was actively trying to repress were threatening to surface.

“I don’t know if a small, hot shower cubical is a good idea in your condition.”

“I don’t care if it’s a 99% chance of certain death. I want a hot shower.”

“If you insist then could I at least join you?”

It took Ripley a full five seconds to process what she just heard, and question herself if she heard it correctly; then she wondered if he meant to say something differently.

“ _What_?”

“I’m worried that you’ll pass out from the hot water—and I-I thought—I’m not thinking clearly yet and I didn’t think—you’ll be undressed so I shouldn't—“

“You want to join me?”

“...For your safety, of course.”

“Right. Safety.” _It’s bullshit_ , she thought, that that was all he had in mind, but then again he was so much kinder, gentler—in the past when men had interest in her they were obvious, forward, and if they were shy it was only out of intimidation rather than admiration, or respect, or affection. They’d approach her, give her a bad line, and offer to buy her a drink. Samuels was softer than that, and far more unsure, and she couldn’t see him wanting shower sex less than two days after hesitantly confessing (possibly against his planning) that he cared about her. _He more than cares about you, he’s almost obsessed…_ Ripley took a deep breath, and nodded.

"Maybe it's a good idea,"

“I…can get you a fresh towel—I have a couple in here, and your clothes are still over in—“ the crew quarters, where she was trying to avoid the sight of Taylor’s bunk and belongings “—I can get them for you or—“ he paused to go to his small rack of clothes “—You’re welcome to sleep in something of mine.”

The selection was slim, but Ripley looks over the spare uniforms, only two, and the one he’s currently wearing is falling apart under the sludge he’s covered in.

“That won’t leave you with much to wear,”

“There’s a small washing facility on board; and I don’t sweat any more than filtered water, and that’s only in extreme heat.”

“You’re too generous.”

“The clothes aren’t mine, they’re the—“ Amanda held up a hand.

“I do _not_ want to hear that right now, I’m angry enough at them to start with. They’re your clothes. _Yours_.” She took an undershirt, considered taking a pair of his rather frumpy boxers, but backed down. _Seeing Taylor’s things won’t make her any more gone_ … There was no way that she could send him to get her underwear.

“I’ll be fine for a few minutes, I need—Meet me at the showers, just a couple minutes?”

“I’ll be there.”

 

\-------

 

“I’m…” the steamy air outside the shower stall, the warmth of it fighting its way to her skin through the layers of grime put her on autopilot. She undressed down to her beyond-rescue sports bra and underwear, embarrassed at the sweat and dirt in front of someone who seemed, even covered in dried android blood and plastic ash, close to immaculate.

He followed suit, slowly, his back turned to her, down to his boxers. Amanda tried to look without watching; she blinked twice, to see if the light of her eyes was tricking her into thinking that her companion, for as stuffy as he came across, had very well defined muscles, lifelike, and moving with him as naturally as they would on a human frame.

“Are you _shitting me_?”

“What?” he turned around to face her, still in his boxers, and looking more than a little worried at this point. He didn’t look her over though, only met her eyes as if they were fully clothed, not even a curious glance despite the fact that this was likely the first time he saw a human in such a state. “Is…something wrong?”

“You—You’re—“

“I…can wait outside the shower if you’d like, I only want to—“

“No, it’s not that you’re—why are you _built like.._. You’re an office model and—“

He looked himself over carefully, almost comically, “I—I can’t say I ever put much thought into it—“

“You’re…” She wasn’t sure there was the word for it, and handsome was too detached, maybe just plain ‘good looking’ but nothing seemed to fit him. “You’re beautiful.” _Of all the dumb shit Ripley why go with…_ she berated herself as he looked even more confused than before.

He looked at her as if deeply concerned for her mental wellbeing. “My appearances are consequential, I didn’t have a hand in my own design.”

“Neither do humans,”

“Don’t tell me that you haven’t worked, exceptionally, for what you look like.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’re upper body strength exceeds the mode for your age and sex; you either lift weights, or lift enough at work to build significant muscle mass. And you’re thinner than the mode _and_ average woman for your age and socioeconomic status.”

“Samuels.”

“Yes?”

“Shut up.”

“I’m only saying that unlike my appearance, you do have a hand in your own design and if either of us deserves to be lauded for what they look like it would be you.”

“I mean it don’t—“

“Does the discussion of physical appearance bother you, or is it the mentioning of what you’ve had to—“

“ _Seriously_ —“

“Because many people deal with—Oh.” He stopped himself, looking shamed again, or at the very least, less energetic. “You don’t like compliments.”

“I like compliments just fine,” it wasn’t a lie, she appreciated the acknowledgement, and she liked the reaction people had to her strength but coming from someone she was currently with? None of her previous partners had ever been able to say anything of the sort to her. She didn’t lack the confidence to accept it—only…she might be thin (not something that was up for discussion), strong, and even, she’d admit it, pretty, but she wasn’t special, she wasn’t _worth_ all the _fuss._

“I’m sorry.”

“Why did they make you…” she tried not to look him over, tried to give him the same enamored respect he have her, but she was only human. “You look like someone put a high school English teacher’s head on an erotica-cover model.”

“…Sorry?”

“No, no it works for you. It does,” she was backing towards the shower stall, still not entirely sure that this was a good idea.

She took off the bra and underwear, kicked them in the direction of their clothes that she planned on jettisoning out the ship later. She took a deep breath.

“Your turn,” she said over her shoulder.

“For wha— _Right._ I—“

“Keep them on if you’d like,” he nodded at her in response, and followed her into the narrow stall. Ripley turned on the hot water, shaking when it hit her, the heat, the water from the ceiling, the steam, the dark metal and the tight space—

“You’re safe,” her medical assistant said gently. “It’s safe…” His tone annoyed her; he was presuming that she was delicate, and she was even more annoyed that, at the moment, he was right.

 

\--------- 

 

If Samuels had any ideas beyond being sure that she didn’t black out and hit her head on the tile, they were all out the airlock at this point. Ripley had been under the water for less than two minutes before she was sobbing into his chest. They stayed that way until the shower’s alarm began to buzz.

“Thirty second warning?” she muttered, not looking up from where she had folded herself up against him; with one hand he continued to rub circles on her back, and the other gently stroking her hair.

“Five minute warning,”

“Huh?”

“The shower timer is normally ten minutes at the most; I put in an override. It’s been twenty minutes, and the hot water is almost out.”

“Shit.” Carefully, she pushed away from him, grateful that at no point did he seem to notice, or be affected by her bare skin on his, but perhaps much like herself, he was too horrified, too scared, too hurt to register any of the physical connotations to it. She blindly reached behind her for a cloth and soap out of the dispenser set into the shower wall. Before starting to scrub at herself (really, she was feeling fine, she could shower on her own again when the hot water refilled), she carefully reached behind him, nudging at him to turn around. He still hasn’t seen the ‘scar’ tissue on his back where she lasered his skin shut after tearing it open.

“I was more worried about the time it would take to seal than I was how it looked…” she wiped at any blood that the hot water didn’t already wash off, careful to avoid it, illogically afraid that she’d break it open again.

“It’s not as if an angry scar is going to damage my career,”

“Hey, I don’t know what you do at the company during your free time.”

“Funny,” he said after a pause, and she couldn’t tell if it took him that long to figure out what she meant, or if he couldn’t laugh.

“Your hair has some burned edges too; I can cut it later,”

“I can do it myself,”

“Probably not, at least not without two mirrors, and you shouldn’t have to.”

“There’s no reason to help me,”

“Has anyone ever helped you do anything?” she had a little bit of a bite to her voice as she said it; he knew it wasn’t aimed at him.

Christopher turned around and brushed the side of her face with his fingertips; he was so hesitant that Ripley could feel the tension of water between his skin and her own.

“My reason for being is to help humans, to make their lives and tasks easier. It’d defeat the purpose of my design if anyone were to offer me help.”

“But you aren’t a PA program,”

“But I do _have_ a PA program set.”

“If anyone were able to talk to you, if anyone _tried_ ,” on one hand, looking him in the eye was hard, on the other hand, she didn’t want to look lower than his elbows, because he was infinitely new to whatever was going on, and she was not. Besides that, he hasn’t felt her up even once, not even with the…. _subtle_ encouragement she tried to give him that he didn’t seem to pick up on at all. Even with his underwear on she didn’t trust herself.

“Amanda…” There was no kind way to argue against her point, no way that wouldn’t distress her more than she already was, and maybe, if oblivion awaited him on their return to Luna and these few days before cryo were all that he’d get…well how much damage to her life could he do in that time? She’s awake and aware enough that she knows what she’s doing; she’s an adult who’s had human relationships before and if she wants this or if this is only confusion from trauma then at least there’s a cut-off date for it. Maybe she needed this as much as he wanted it, and he couldn’t deny to himself that he did.

Before she could back away and protest, he inclined forward, pressing his straight closed lips to her forehead in a very unpracticed but by no means unaffectionate kiss.

“You can do better than that.” Her cocky smile, the challenge in her tone, the sparks in her nebula green eyes… Maybe…Maybe...

With his mouth sill shut, he kissed her lips, barely a second, amusingly shy compared to the state that they were in. She smiled.

“We’ll work on it.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! Sorry this took a hundred years.
> 
> For anyone who's new here, I'd like to add that this is a follow up to my fic "Stage One" which sets the stage for character behavior in this one. You don't /need/ to read it first, but I promise their actions are a lot less out of left field if you read that one first.
> 
> Other than that, I feed off of reviews (positive, negative, or just keysmashes), AND you can always find me on tumblr @one-of-us-must-be-crazy (A:I blog).


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ended up getting called into work almost three hours early and had to cut editing short. I think I cut out the more repetitive issues, but I didn't want to wait any longer to post!

At some point between drying off from the shower and crashing back onto his bunk, Christopher Samuels came to the conclusion that he no longer gave a fuck.

 _If I only have until we’re back…_ When he’s gone, when she’s back to safety, she’ll get help, move on with her life normally and brush off the memory that any of this with him ever happened. Now, she’s enjoying this, and so is he, this bizarre liminal time with Ripley in her underwear and one of _his_ undershirts, lying on top of him, and

gently continuing her lessons in human affection.

 

_Earlier_

 

It had started as soon as they were out of the shower, another step taken—by him, and he could hardly believe he had done it—and some new layer of Amanda had been brushed back. She had taken his hand when he offered it to help her out of the stall, so worried she was somewhat delirious and would slip, and smiled, almost embarrassed; it was as if she was just now noticing that he was looking at her naked.

“So…just how strange is this for you?” Ripley immediately grabbed her towel and faced the wall opposite of him, not just to give him the privacy he still seemed to need so he change into dry pants, but also because she was eager to break eye contact.

“Surely not as much as it must be for you.”

“It’s only…weird because whatever this is…it usually takes longer to get this far.”

“Longer?” by the echo of his voice she could tell that he was facing the other wall, no longer watching her.

“She tried to phrase what she wanted to say without it sounding accusatory. “I don’t get this—“ _soft? Affectionate?_ “—Like this very quickly _ever_ and—I don’t sleep with people, or really even kiss—I mean, sure I’ve had one nights and hookups, nearly every deep-space engineer has, but anyone worth pursuing—it’s more…You know enough about human nature to understand, don’t you?”

“Not to hold you to the finer details in your mental condition but—we haven’t slept together as I believe you’re implying.”

“Do you want to?” she said it too quickly, too eagerly, even though she was anything but sure of her words; and while she didn’t turn around, still only halfway dressed, she could hear that he had stopped mid-movement too, processing her question. “If you want—anything you want,” she was a bit firmer, a bit more confident; after all she had lower standards for short-term arrangements. And he wasn’t bad looking. It could be nice. “I’d say you’ve earned it.”

“As payment?”

“As a thank you.”

“Then I might… have a request, or several.” His words were hesitant but when he finally said them there was an assuredness in his voice that set a small fire in her.

“ _Anything_.”

“Anything physical that I could cask of you?”

Ripley turned around to face him, trying to keep her voice pleasant: “Yes.”

“Then can you please allow me to look you over for injuries?”

“ _What?!”_

 _“_ You said anything?”

“ _Yes_ , I _did_ but I meant—“

“I—don’t know if I’m capable of…penetrative intercourse as you were referring to—But I wouldn’t make you if I could—or even if I wanted to, I wouldn’t want you to degrade yourself like that.”

“ _Degrade myself_?” She was angry, and Samuels was at a loss once again of just how a human mind worked.

“You know how it’s looked upon—it’s…rather red-light to have personal relations with a synthetic, even one that was designated for that specific purpose.”

“I don’t give a _fuck_. If it’s something we want—wait, wait,” Ripley took a deep breathe and rubbed at her eye with the palm of her hand, careful of the bruise that she was hoping wouldn’t turn purple. Yellow and green bruises she could cover up, purple was harder—not for vanity, but it was hard enough to be a pretty female engineer and get taken seriously: covered in bruises at the end of a mission, it would look as if she didn’t know what she was doing. Or maybe no one thought of it that way, but she did. “You don’t know if you can—?” She wasn’t a prude, but the words ‘ _have sex’_ weren’t this difficult to say since she was fifteen.

“I never…made an attempt at it?”

“Really?” she bit back on a laugh, “I won’t ever pressure you but if you want—“

“No! Not that I—I wouldn’t—it’s—“

“It’s okay! Like I said,” she was more relaxed now that it was at least temporarily off the table, and picked up a comb, looking in the small mirror mounted on the side of the lockers. “This is a lot faster than normal as it is, we aren’t even—“

“Would you want to?”

“…. Would I want to what?”

“Anything,” he said it with the same inflection she had used earlier, so exact that it almost lacked his natural accent in favor of her own. “Anything in the way of physical affection,”

“…if you did,” she answered, giving more focus to her hair than it really needed.

“I’m willing to do—“

“No.” she stopped him, turning back around to take a careful look at his fretful expression. _It’s almost cute_ … “I’m not going to say anything until you do. I’m not stupid, and you aren’t a kid with a crush. We’re adults, talk to me like one. Would anything of the more physical side of human relationships interest you at all?”

Just as she had taken an interest in her hair, suddenly he was overcome with a need to hyper focus on the button of the clean shirt he had brought from the cabin to chance into. Really it’s a feat of engineering beyond the comprehension of most humans that he had the dexterity and motor skills required for such a small—

“Samuels?”

“Well…you did just say you aren’t stupid,” his bashful smile looked off to her until she realized that it was the missing blush effect that made it seem strange. He couldn’t blush. _Well that’s not fair,_ she thought, feeling her own face start to flush over into a very uncomplimentary shade of red.

“Oh, I know, but I want to hear it.” She _did not_ know before then; he was somehow difficult to read despite being so transparent.

“Please assume that I’d be more than happy with anything you could ever want to try with me, or try to do to me.”

Ripley nodded. “In the name of honesty and continuing to talk like adults: that was…kind of hot.”

“I wasn’t trying to be?” he was lying. That much she could read instantly.

“That’s bullshit,”

“Possibly,” at this point he couldn’t _not_ smile, even though he was expressly commanding the computer section in charge of facial muscles to _not smile._

“Do you want to try to kiss me again?”

 

\------------

 

Ripley knew should be thinking about what awaited them at Luna, about the paperwork, and possible boards that she’d have to present her case to, at what could happen—this company that bargained with monetary values that exceeded the worth of all the work in the Smithsonian, and the lives of more humans than she ever wanted to think of again—this company would want her quiet, and she was afraid. She knew she should be thinking about the lack of guilt she felt at killing those who tried to kill her, at that security guard who was so exhausted in mind and body that he said out loud how badly he wanted to see his kids again—and Ripley shot him between the helmet and vest. She knew she should be thinking about Taylor, used and thrown out by the company despite her intelligence and ambition, how her family would be notified in the same no-nonsense way that she had been about her mother, and that if she had tried just a little harder, maybe Taylor would still be alive.

Instead, along with the undercurrent of guilt from _not_ thinking about any of those things, she was thinking about how she had never, ever once been someone’s first kiss, first anything, and something dark and sad beyond the already existing guilt nags at her. Because she was the first, she was likely not going to be his last— _is that what you even want_?

Right then she couldn’t imagine otherwise; even with his artless movements, she didn’t want to think about anyone else ever again.

“Let’s go back to the cabin,” he said at her ear.

 

\-----------

 

Sure, he gave a thought to the fact that pure nothing awaits him after the shutdown he knew he’d face on Luna (either that or a complete memory overhaul, in which case everything that made him _him_ would be gone, and death wasn’t much different than that—or at least, as far as he could understand the concept). The part that bothered him the most was that he didn’t think he’d be able to miss her if there was nothing at all left of him, he simply won’t _be_ , and it was so unspeakably wrong that it almost caused him pain.

 

And that was how he came to the conclusion that he had to stop caring about something, at least stop caring about the guilt he felt for getting so involved with Amanda’s emotions, and enjoy whatever was left as much as she was enjoying it.

 

\--------------

 

“You’re the most touch-starved man I’ve ever met,” she said, rising a little from her position of dozing on top of him.

“What about you?”

“We aren’t talking about me,” she had let him look her over for internal injuries, which turned into him rubbing her back, which turned into her trying to do the same for him, which turned into a debate as to why she’d do that for someone _like him_ , which turned into a truce of collapsing back onto the bunk and her having caught up a little bit more to her lost sleep.

“I didn’t know I was ‘touch-starved,’ I didn’t think I was missing out on anything beyond…social treatment, companionship, but I also didn’t know what they really felt like either,” Amanda smiled sadly at him, brushed his hair back a little. She liked the sight of it messy more and more. It couldn’t be a good sign.

“It’s…I don’t know if that’s more or less depressing than knowing what it feels like to be loved and cared for, and then lose it.”

“I’m glad to know it now,” he sat up too, and kissed her again, but something else occurred to her.

“Do you want to try more?”

“More what?”

“Your kissing is—“ she stopped, remembering how quickly he could misunderstand “it’s nice! But you also stand to learn a lot, if you want to,”

“I do want to, if you’ll teach me?”

“Really?” she stood up, and held out a hand to him; he ignored the urge to tell her that it was pointless, and held it without letting her actually counter any of his weight.

“ _Yes_ ,” he thought that that was the answer she was looking for, and couldn’t understand why it had her looking so amused. Any desire to question her reaction was stamped out by her carefully draping her arms around his neck—this he already learned: when she does it, she wants it returned. He held her, his arms around her and hands resting on her back, and tried to force a smile despite the error notices in his head.

Amanda tilted her head slightly to the side, her nose didn’t touch his this time, and her lips on his were firmer and he mimicked her movements; when she pulled back the suction made a very quiet _pop_. It was _very_ strange, but she was _so close_ to him, and he remembered every film and book and work of art he’s seen in his short span of existence and all the images of couples holding each other so close they shared the same silhouette, like their shadow on his cabin wall right now. One of his hands reaches up into her hair, and her hold him tightens.

“You’re enjoying this,”

“Is it that obvious?”

“Yeah,” she was smiling through her words, almost letting out a laugh, “Yeah it is. Keep going?”

He nodded, almost too eagerly, and she kissed him again, and a half-second day dream materializes in an otherwise silent section of his mind that one day in the distant future he’d laugh a little and tell her that they have now kissed over a thousand times. The scenario vanishes when Ripley’s lips part even more against his own, and her tongue gently pokes at his slightly open mouth, and he immediately drew back.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

“That—“ he was licking his lips, almost unaware, and not sure exactly what to do with his hands anymore or the distance he had now created between them. “That—it—your tongue was…”

“Yes?” it took her as long to realize what was bothering him as it took him to realize what she had been doing.

“That’s…normal then, isn’t it?” he was highly embarrassed; for all the films he’s seen, for all that he’s read—well, true most of it was far older than eras in which that sort of thing would be discussed, and he knew tongues played _some_ sort of role, but not that they were actually _put out_ or _in_ like that.

“It’s normal, when a couple is close. If you don’t like it though, I won’t do it, and you don’t have to.”

“Thank you…but I don’t want to rule out anything typical of human relations—or deny you anything—without giving it a proper try.”

“You adorable,” she said before she could stop herself. “Fuck. I mean. Not—We can try that again,” her words poured out in a hurry and she tried to focus on the logo on his shirt to avoid his eyes.

His natural smile, the emotive one rather than the clear and business-like one that she suspected was a false expression and part of a program, was asymmetrical and caused the corners of his eyes to crinkle. _How can that make him look both older and younger at the same time?_

“So are you, Amanda,” he hesitated, less of a halt of action and more of a jumpy movement as if only part of his nervous system had gotten the memo of ‘stop,’ but then he set his hand onto the side of her hair and brushed his fingers through the still-damp strands: they slightly clumped together, her hair flatter and even straighter wet than it was when dry. It also looked darker, and made her eyes stand out all the brighter. “And I said I wanted to learn,”

“You’ll get better with time…and practice,” her hand had come up to cover his, and she held it to the side of her face. _Do you love having the comfort of another person or do you actually love him?_ She quickly banished both thoughts entirely, and the horrific word that came along with it. Her body and mind were still exhausted and neither were to be fully trusted, a fact she was even more aware of when she found herself tugging him by the hand she was already holding back onto the bunk again.

 

\-----------------

 

Samuels did like the feel of this deeper form of kissing once he was over the initial shock of it; Ripley increased every movement carefully, hyperaware of his ignorance. _Poor idiot’s never been touched before and now you’ve got him somewhere between second and third base on his first day with a…what even am I?_ She wanted some kind of connective phrase for this, even if it was only going to be short lived, it was a relationship, and _that_ was no longer deniable. And it felt _nice_. Of course he was slow to pick up on the general idea, but once he did he was a fast enough learner; more adept than most men she’s been with. The only complaint she could really form was that he was fidgeting with his hands; sometimes leaving them at his sides, sometimes on her back, maybe one in her hair again.

And he liked the private closeness of it, this quiet and nearly silent little place where they were both safe and mostly well. Rationally, of course it made sense that it was pleasant: it was an active display of affection that they were both getting a positive sensation from, and though he can’t necessarily taste things as a clearly as a human, and his sense of taste was even more vague because of his damage, he could make out the coolness of the mint from her toothpaste, and wondered if she was too polite to mention that she could taste the white hydraulics that he had taken earlier.

When she finally pulled back from him, he was left starring worriedly at her.

“It’s okay,” she whispered softly, running her fingers through his hair; he wanted to protest that she was making even more of a mess of it, but the feeling was too nice to cut short. “I just need to breathe,” she punctuated it with a short, chaste kiss before resting her forehead against hers. Her eyes squinted for a moment, as if she was smiling, or laughing, but he couldn’t see beyond her eyes. He would be alright if this was all he ever saw again, but her eyes softened and she exhaled close to him still that he felt the vibrations of her next words on his lips: “I’m keeping you.”

“You couldn’t afford me.” It did earn him a short laugh from her, but she still backed away a bit again.

“I mean it. You would…Conner found you, and he let me have you. I’ll claim salvagers’ rights,” her heart was beating louder and harder and faster, so much so that she couldn’t hear herself thinking of the millions of other things she could say to change the subject.

“It’s a stretch as to whether or not I was gone long enough to be considered salvage…but if they accept it, and you haven’t changed your mind, then I’m yours.”

“I don’t want to own you—you’re human, it’s creepy and it’s wrong.”

“I’m still only a computer at the end of the day.”

“Not starting that again. And if owning you is the only way that I can have you fine, at least at first. But I want to write you over to yourself.”

“It wouldn’t be possible; I can’t hold property.”

“You can’t be the only human one out there! Maybe somewhere else there was a legal case or some kind of documentation or…” she slumped against the cold wall of the cabin, stretching her legs out to dangle over the edge of the bunk. He made a motion to lay down but realized that he would be on top of her; before he could change his motions she gently tugged him down so his head rested on her lap. She kept brushing back at his hair until he shut his eyes.

“I might have….done some reading before,” he paused. “About….synthetics—and their involvement with humans in the past, and if there were any official records of it.”

“Involvement as in relationships?”

“…..Possibly.”

“Christopher?” she liked the taste of his first name almost as much as she did the static electric taste of his mouth.

“Yes?” he still didn’t open his eyes.

“For how _fucking_ long did you have a crush on me?”

“No, that’s not why I—“

“Chris—seriously.”

“…It wasn’t that long; they only gave me your file a couple months before I found you working at the dockyard.”

“You’re adorable. And I meant to say it this time,” she took one of his hands and held it in hers; he gently pulled it to rest over his chest; he didn’t have a heartbeat or a steady breath exactly but there was a vibration coming from his chest cavity that she supposed functioned similarly. She thought that he must have been far older than the models she had worked on in college synthetic labs. “Still…whether there’s a precedent or not I’ll blackmail the company if I have to. The shit that I’ve seen—that they have put me through, the things that they have made me _do_.”

“You didn’t _do_ anything; everything that happened was by their own indirect hand. Nothing would have happened had they not set it up to happen.”

“Like cruel gods,”

“Indifferent ones,”

“No, they _actively_ have destroyed countless lives in the past four days, and who knows what other shit they’ve done? And we have recordings. They give you to me, they give me my mom’s insurance, and they finally give payouts to any living relatives of the rest of her shipmates—and those of everyone on Sevastapol or I go to every news outlet that will listen to me and tell them what happened.”

“You’re serious?”

“Would you want to stay with me?”

“I—“ he knew that what she was saying was all fantasy, that there was no chance at all that things would go as planned, and he had been so accepting of his assumed fate that it was nearly impossible to entertain the thought of another outcome at all. And what would the future be? Ripley growing older and more bored with him by the day as newer household synthetic models with twice his abilities roll onto the market? The more advanced they would get the less human he would look and how long until she resented committing to him? Would she even want to be committed to him; no more human than a delivery drone or the mail bots, maybe she would only stay with him out of guilt, or would she start seeing other men? He wasn’t sure what was worse.

“I’m getting you from Weyland-Yutani, and after that you can do whatever you want. Stay with me, or find somewhere else and I’ll help you do it. It’s your choice.”

_…………..choice…………._

“Right now, I want to stay here with you,” that part wasn’t a lie; it would have been a lie to say that he thought they stood a chance. _Let her be happy for as long as she can be_. “And you sound so tired,”

Had she really been either sick or sleeping for the entire day? _Or making out like teenagers with a fucking synthetic_ … It was so stinging that she had a hard time realizing it came from her own mind. _I am tired…_ Samuels rose form his spot with regret, and Amanda pulled her bra off from under her tank top, and he blinked a moment trying to figure out how she did; he took off his uniform pants and Ripley reached around him, he thought she was trying to hug him again, but instead she lifted the undershirt off over his head.

“Is that okay?” she asked softly.

“Why?”

“I hope you would have stopped me if it wasn’t okay with you but…do you mind it?”

“Usually for shutdowns or ‘rest’ of any kind we would remain clothed.”

“If you’re more comfortable that way,” she held his shirt back out to him, “Please.”

“No, I don’t mind it,” he smiled to try and get her to accept the answer as something he meant, not just something he said for her, even though he wasn’t sure what his own answer would be if he didn’t already know what she preferred.

“Good… I like—“ she was blushing; he liked it. “I like the way your skin feels. You’re warmer than I am.” He almost asks the same of her then, his hands were already at her waist ready to lift her shirt up too before a sense of protocol finally stopped all his movements, it was one thing in this early stage of a relationship for him to be shirtless, and it would be another thing entirely for _her_ to be.

…Even with the memory of her in the shower, he reminded himself that this wasn’t exactly a normal setup for a new relationship, and that Amanda would prefer to take things…slower than they had been going.

“Logically,” he said, following her motions of getting back onto the bunk, their already-habitual fashion of her against the cabin wall and him between her and the door, “humans are comforted by warmth; and my computers generate excess heat.”

“It’s also yours. The skin. That sounded fucking weird, I’m sorry—I like _you_ and the closeness.”

“…. Thank you?”

“You like it too, don’t you?”

“What?”

“Being close like this?” her expression of worry only increased at this thoughtful silence.

“Can I ask you something?” she hummed an affirmative note. “How can I request—or ask permission of you to offer…signs of affection?”

“If we’re alone assume you have permission for anything. If I don’t want it, I’ll tell you to stop.”

He kissed her with decreasing clumsiness. “Thank you for asking,” he said, “I do enjoy the closeness. It’s—all of this is still strange—different but it’s nice.”

“It’s been a long time since I’ve had someone this close to me, but I’ll get used to it.” She sat up, and so did he; she looked at him a moment, curious and caring, and reached behind him to shut off the desk lamp, leaving them almost entirely in the dark. If he wasn’t there she knew that she wouldn’t feel safe, but this close, it was easier for logic to take hold, for her to know there was no danger here.

She was the most dangerous person on the Torrens, technically.

“Amanda?”

“I might sleep better in the dark,”

“Human couples kiss goodnight,”

“We’ve been doing that for at least an hour,”

“One more?”

“Needy.” Exhaustion overcame common sense and she straddled his lap as he leaned farther up to meet her mouth; he locked his arms around her, and her aching muscles turned soft under his touch, _you killed—you shot—people this week **.**_ **_Not. Now._ **

 

\------------

 

Christopher Samuels’ had no idea what he was doing. Literally. There was no program, no code, no _anything_ that should have been allowing him to take lead in any action that he had only so recently learned. _Especially_ the action of caressing a woman’s— _a human woman’s_ —tongue with his own. And Ripley’s hands in his hair again, and her body pressed to his felt natural and right no matter the bit of his brain that kept screaming it was wrong; he vocalized a sound he wasn’t sure what to call, and pulled her closer to him at the hips.

 

\------------

 

Weyland-Yutani was, Amanda decided, easily the most fucked up institution that she had ever come into contact with.

Of course, she already had thought that for most of her life, but the extent of just how deep their _fuckery_ went didn’t occur to her until one of their synthetics was moaning into her mouth and tugging her hips harder against his. And even though his rather frumpy and unattractive boxers, she could feel decidedly human anatomy.

She almost bit his tongue when she jolted back.

“ _What?!”_

“What’s wrong?”

“You have—nothing, sorry it’s—“ it’s _what_ exactly? It’s not as if he didn’t infer that he had parts that could or could not be functional. He must have known enough about human reproduction to know that he needed specific things to— _Really? Since when have I been shy to_ myself _? I’m the one who told him we’re both adults. Honestly I should be thrilled that he has a…decent set._

“Amanda, are you alright?”

“……you’re…physically accurate aren’t you?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—“ she bit her lip. _Okay so I’ll be tactful, just come right out and say it_ , she couldn’t. She absolutely could _not_ say it. She lowered herself back down against him, pressing harder.

“ _oh_. Er…yes…I---Weyland-Yutani might have situations in which it would be easier if a synthetic was integrated into the humans of a ship or office; any of the more recent models are…anatomically correct.”

“Right. Right I don’t know how I didn’t know that.”

“It’s alright…I’m sorry if it bothers you.”

“It doesn’t bother me!” she climbed off of him and settled back down onto her pillow. “It’s been a long time since I’ve been with a guy,”

“You said your last relationship was only two years ago,”

“I mean…that’s a long time as it is, but I haven’t been in bed with a guy for at least three years—at least…not for more than hour. Deep space gets boring,” she confessed, “And…lonely.”

“That’s not why you’re here is it?”

“No, you’re more than that to me. A lot more.”

“So your last relationship wasn’t intimate?”

“What do you mean?”

“You said you hadn’t been in bed with a man for longer than that?”

“A _man_. The last person I had a serious relationship with wasn’t a man.”

At least a minute of silence went by and Ripley wondered how long she could go without breathing.

“Your last relationship was with a woman?”

“They go by they now, but yes, at the time, we both thought they were a woman.”

“That didn’t make it into your file.”

“Because most people—at least most men—assume everyone they meet is straight. You’re not any worse than the rest of them; and you know enough history to know that shit used to be a lot worse.”

“But you do…feel attraction to men too?”

“You’re a man.”

“Is that a yes?”

“ _Yes,_ Christopher.” If he was human she would have been shorter tempered with him.

“Okay, good,” there was another long pause and he shifted, lying an arm over her waist. “Can I kiss you again?”

“Is it just to end an awkward conversation?”

“Amanda, all of our conversations have been…awkward.” She laughed, which hurt in this position, her bruised body and bones crying out memories of the past few days as soon as she had finally quieted them.

“True,” she kissed him, softly on the mouth, then again on the forehead before wriggling back into her spot, close to him, one of each of their arms over the other one. “That was the last one…”

“Tomorrow we need to talk with Verlaine and Conner. Even if we keep procrastinating all of you need to go into cryo or we’ll run out of supplies.”

“You too,”

“I’ll be fine...”

 

She thought she said something, else, tried to argue back, but she didn’t. She was asleep and Samuels kept trying to insist to himself that he still didn’t care, that he was going to enjoy what was left of his existence, and that he was going to spend it with her without the oil-black guilt that gracefully slinked around the edges of his mind, hissing as it’s tail dragged behind it.

 


End file.
